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The groom pronounced his wife “a planner” and we (the girls of SMP) found a kindred spirit. We love a well planned wedding, especially one SO beautiful you could curl up with it for days and days, so when the planner bride teamed up with Cedarwood Weddings to create a vintage, romantic soiree, well let’s just say there have been a few days of wedding cuddling on this side of the computer screen, all made possible by Jen & Chris Creed | Photographers, the talented team behind THIS pretty doozy of a gallery!

From the bride … Chris and I met at a friend’s dinner party in Atlanta and were immediately drawn to each other. A week later I gushed about this meeting to my best friends over email telling them how much I liked him and how perfect it was all going. Little did I know that same email would be read by my Maid of Honor just two years later at our Rehearsal Dinner. While I screamed with laughter (and semi-embarrassment!) over my own words and every detail down to my punctuation and non-stop smiley faces, it was the perfect reminder of the evening we met, our instant connection and how our love transpired from that meeting to our engagement on a family ski trip.

The day after we got engaged I “stayed in sick” from the slopes but Chris knew better when he came back and I had purchased 3 wedding magazines, a wedding book planner and a cupcake. That same day I started learning all the wedding blogs and googling ideas. When I googled “rustic vintage Nashville wedding” and came across Cedarwood, I knew my search was done! We wanted two things in our wedding for our guests to have a great time and for it to feel like “us.” Cedarwood helped us do just that. They post details from all of their amazing weddings on their blog which is where I got a lot of ideas and inspiration on what I wanted for our day. My new last name, Wren, was also a great source of inspiration. From our invitations with a tree theme and a bird tag tying all the pieces together to “nest” style boutonnieres to the flower girl carrying a bird cage and mini bird ornaments as thank you favors so everyone got to enjoy “taking home a Wren,” I was always looking for details to tie that in.

Chris and I attended Pre-Marital counseling through our church (which I highly recommend!) and one of the greatest things we learned is our love languages. I learned that I show love through “acts of service” and I realized the entire wedding planning process was an act of service for me. I wanted everyone to feel included and special on our day. Your wedding is the only time in your life where you’ll have so many people together who you care about and who made you who you are. I wanted to show them all my love and gratitude with this amazing event and by involving everyone I could in our day. I’m fortunate to have two very special men in my life, my father and my step-father who came into my life when I was a teen. My dad walked me down the aisle and my step-father met us halfway to finish the walk together, symbolic of when he came into my life and both families giving me away together. My childhood best friend’s parents (whose house I spent every weekend at growing up) read a scripture during the ceremony. Later they showed me the bookmark that marked the page, one my friend and I had colored “Laura & Rachel BFF” at age 8. My sister read the other scripture and each bridesmaid finished by reading a different virtue in the verse. I enlisted the help of my grandmother to make our groom’s cake, Mamaw Fleming’s famous chocolate cake. I had each bridesmaid pick out their own bridesmaid dress style from Amsale because they’re each so amazing and beautiful in different ways. Everyone there was a special person in our lives and we were so grateful that they shared in our day and in our love story.

Our day was perfect in my eyes. It went by fast but I was “there” for every minute. I got to eat the dinner and cake, I got to see my dad swing my grandmother on the dance floor, I got to shake the band’s tambourine and dance with my husband down to the last song and most importantly I got to have fun and truly enjoy the night surrounded by all of the people I love the most.

From the Groom … I saw Laura Lee working on this post and told her not to stress too much, but then I remembered who she is. The one who’s family calls her the Christmas Nazi, the one who wants to plan every tailgate in the Grove down to every last detail, the one who was more worried about how everyone else would feel on her wedding day more so than how she would feel. That’s my wife. She puts all of herself into everything. And she truly put everything of herself into making our day spectacular. I knew how hard she was working all along but then seeing it all come together and hearing our friends and family comment on how amazing it was made me love and appreciate her hard work that much more.

It was fun, it was “us” and it was perfect. We couldn’t have asked for a better day.